


Rey of Jakku

by Eirenare



Series: The "Rey of Jakku" fic and its companion pieces [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adding tags as the story advances, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben-centric, Canon compliant until The Last Jedi, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Visions, Happy Ending, Holocron, Hurt/Comfort, Jedi Holocron, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren-centric, Mutual Pining, Once an speculative TROS fic now basically an AU, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Rating may go up to explicit, Rey Needs A Hug, Rey-Centric, Reylo-centric, Sith Holocron, Things go to hell in a handbasket hard and fast, holocrons, it's always darkest before the dawn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-29 20:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21416257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eirenare/pseuds/Eirenare
Summary: A year after the battle of Crait, the curtain finally rises and Rey and Ben Solo are in the spotlight.Visions will plague their peace, shadows of the past will poison their minds, love will haunt their hearts, blood will be shed—and an old laugh, devoid of humanity and dripping with darkness, will welcome them to their undoing.As the master puppetteer pulls the strings... will they rise, or will they sink?[My vision of how "The Rise of Skywalker" may or may not play out. // EDIT, 17/12/2019: conceived and planned before TROS is out, was unable to finish writing it before the movie's release date but will continue working on it and uploading it. Added number of chapters for clarity—you can check the full line-up of chapters + summary phrases here: https://eirenare.tumblr.com/post/189562701887/tros-reylo-fic-rey-of-jakku ]
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Reylo
Series: The "Rey of Jakku" fic and its companion pieces [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1573558
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	Rey of Jakku

_ 1\. _

  
  
Some days, Rey liked to pretend she was just leading a normal life in Batuu.

She would sneak in Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities to sate her ever-growing curiosity, hungry for knowledge, and stroll the streets of the Black Spire Outpost, breathing in this temporary freedom as her eyes watched in wonder the lively market around her. The familiar diversity around her that made her think of Niima Outpost, except it was clear that life conditions at Batuu were far better (even if it wasn’t precisely a home for the most honest of people). It was often that Rey would take a little trip to the village of Galma, excited to watch other mechanics do their work. Or just wander around the forests and admire their lush vegetation and the petrified trees that had long ago extended their dark trunks towards the sky.

These days passed by way too quickly for Rey’s taste and were, unluckily, scarce. It wasn’t as if she didn’t enjoy being around her comrades on the Resistance’s base, tinkering with the Millennium Falcon under Chewbacca’s guidance or sharing anecdotes with her friends. She even enjoyed her training, frustrating as it could be at times, and was able to deal properly with every task asked of her. But some days, she just needed to… breathe. Leave the Resistance, the recruitment campaign and the missions for a while and just be Rey of Jakku (of Nowhere) again. An anonymous face in the crowd. She didn’t miss being alone, nor her old home (if it even could have been called “home” to begin with), but she did miss tinkering with what she found scavenging inside the gargantuan battle ships—and exploring at her leisure was certainly more relaxed when she wasn’t on the run.

Today, however, Rey just couldn’t bring herself to pretend.

Sitting on the ramp of the Falcon, her hands meticulously tracing every nook and cranny of the fixed lightsaber, she frowned. It had given her some trouble earlier that morning when she tested it during her training, and she really couldn’t afford this to happen. Not now, with reports coming in about the First Order’s grip on more and more planets tightening.

Rey sighed and brought her knees to her chest as she stared at the vast expanse of forest surrounding the camp. They had settled at the end of the Surabat River Valley, rocky and infamous to navigate with starships, but even though it wasn’t that easy to reach their settlement at the ruins, Rey had a feeling they had been on borrowed time for too long. It was just a matter of time before the First Order discovered their hideout. After all, how long had it been since the battle of Crait? A year, give or take?

As she looked at the once broken lightsaber she still held, a flash of memory came to her—Ben… no, Kylo Ren, standing before her with his hand outstretched to her and the plea in his eyes so much louder than his beg. The image was soon replaced by that of their silent last meeting at Crait, and the strange sensation of closing her end of their bond to Kylo like a door—much like she shut the Falcon’s ramp as farewell, even as his mind still tried to reach out to her. After that there had been no contact between them anymore, although she swore she could sometimes still feel a faint tug from the other side of the bond.

A sense of dread filled Rey, the questions again plaguing her: would he plunge to the darkness? Would he become a second Snoke?

It sent a shiver down her spine to imagine such things, Kylo’s offering echoing in her mind painfully as she realized she didn’t know what to expect. Her hope of bringing Kylo back to the light was pretty much crushed, and while she harbored no hatred towards him, there was a deep disappointment rooted in her bones. It wasn’t the only thing she hadn’t quite managed to snuff out. _ Sadness_, whispered a part of Rey. _ Hurt. Worry_. These feelings still persisted, to her frustration.

However Rey knew where all these thoughts led her mind to, and she didn’t want to go there, so she stood up gripping her lightsaber with perhaps more strength than necessary and walked down the ramp.

She needed a distraction, and distract herself she did. More training and more intense, eating her fill again at dinner, meeting with her friends, trying to decipher alongside Threepio the Jedi tomes, working on her lightsaber. By the time of heading to sleep, she was absolutely exhausted.

But the thoughts she wanted to avoid eventually caught up to her, leading the way for deep-seated worries and anxiety, for a myriad of “what if”, “could’ve” and “should’ve” that haunted her as she tossed and turned in her bed.

Little before falling asleep, Rey’s too drowsy brain offered her the portrayal of a life she would never have in Batuu. A life with no First Order to threaten them all where his friends could fly on free skies, where her parents were still with her and Han and Luke would be alive and teached her. A life where Kylo Ren was just Ben Solo and no darkness loomed over him, where they could have met under very different circumstances and she could have had a normal life and work as pilot, mechanic, explorer, anything—whatever her heart desired. A very different life where maybe, just maybe, she would’ve answered “yes” to a different petition from Ben.

She allowed herself to be drawn into such surreal scenarios as her consciousness drifted away, too tired to even care. After all, these images were better than to fall asleep to memories of abandonment, death, war and heartbreak.

Rey’s last thought before losing her consciousness was the one that haunted her the most.

_I don’t want to kill Ben. _

  
  
_2\. _

  
  
Rey jolted awake in the middle of the night with her heart fluttering inside her ribcage like a scared bird.

But then again, she _ was _ scared.

She had no clue what she just saw in her dreams, and she was certain that having a vivid dream didn’t mean she just had a vision, yet the oppressive feeling crushing her heart as she felt a deep disturbance in the Force definitely did. And that laugh…

The hairs on Rey’s neck stood on end as she recalled it. An old laugh, devoid of humanity and dripping with darkness, that rang in her ears as she envisioned a little pyramidal device floating in roaring waves and another one in a dodecahedral shape laying among sand.

The laugh was still ringing in Rey’s mind as she stood up from the bed with wobbly legs and proceeded to take the datapad to write what she saw and draw the artifacts, just in case she would forget. This was important, she knew that much.

Rey felt it then—a sudden stir at the other end of her bond with Kylo, loud and clear even when she had closed the door to her own side. A deep disquiet mixed with anxiety and fear, just like she felt. These sensations burst from him to echo in her soul, making it all feel twice as intense. They must have had the same dream then, and the thought was unsettling.

And then, just as suddenly, Rey felt his mind brushing against hers—and still agitated, taken by surprise by a contact attempt that hadn’t happened in around a year, her knee-jerk reaction was to push away the presence of his mind before she could even think.

“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”, she cursed low with a hiss. This could have been her chance (probably her only one) to speak about the strange vision with Kylo (to speak with him overall), and she had thrown it away on an impulse.

She tried to contact him in response, but he rejected her as well.

Leaving behind the datapad at the desk and sitting on the bed with a tired sigh, Rey willed her still restless heart to calm down. It took her some minutes of deep breaths and meditation, but when she finally achieved it, she realized the twin sensations coming from Kylo had soothed as well.

_Did it work on him too?_, Rey thought with a frown.

If that was the case, well, then that influence was… interesting. And stronger than she thought. She wondered if he had ever influenced her too due to their bond, only to remember how she had emulated some of Kylo’s battle moves before. How they had fought together the Praetorian Guard, so in sync. She wondered if, at that time where she had confronted Luke about him almost killing his nephew, her anger had been only hers or carried part of Kylo’s. But of course he did influence her. And, apparently, she influenced him just as much.

Her thoughts took her back to the moment where Kylo had interrogated her, and to when Snoke admitted as to having bridged their minds. For some reason, Rey could never repress a feeling of disappointment at thinking their bond might have been just the former Supreme Leader’s doing.

_The ugly bastard_, she grumbled mentally, rolling her eyes before allowing her back to fall against the mattress.

Rey failed once more to ignore the implications it could have if Snoke had built the bond between them, and a wave of uncertainty bit her—maybe their bond would eventually break, since Snoke had died? Kylo and her were in the opposite sides of a war and she had no hopes that the situation would change for the best (much to her dismay), but after having connected like they did, she found that the possibility of their bond vanishing felt… strange. Strange, and lonely—oh Force, so lonely. But then again it would probably make things easier, less painful, so maybe it would be for the good.

_Specially if you may have to kill him one day_, whispered a part of herself.

Rey muffled a groan of frustration against the pillow, trying to shove aside these thoughts—her head was a mess. If only things weren’t so difficult.

Curling on the warm bed and pulling again the blankets around her, Rey tried to go back to sleep. She hoped that this time her dreams wouldn’t be haunted by visions, but at this point reality was so much worse than that.

  
  
_3\. _

  
  
A pair of days later, the alarms went off all of a sudden.

Caught in the midst of her training in the woods, Rey grabbed her bag from the ground and cursed as she darted to the camp and past crew members that were frantically organizing for the assault. They had tried to be as much prepared as they could for when they would be discovered and attacked by the First Order, had made plans for that moment, but as she looked at the sky and the myriad of ships approaching their base her heart sank. Too many of them, way more than they would have imagined the First Order would send and what their little Resistance would be able to handle—there even were a pair of Star Destroyers looming high above, their shadow casted upon them like a promise of destruction. There was no way they could fight them, and no matter how many plans they had made, escaping would be a miracle. They had have to try something else.

_Force help us _…!

In the middle of the chaos, Rey caught sight of Chewbacca heading to the Falcon.

“Chewie!”, she yelled. “Get the Falcon ready, I think I have a plan!”

It most likely wasn’t a good plan, but it was all she could think of.

The wookie roared affirmatively as he went up the ramp, and Rey run straight to the facilities inside the caves. She needed to find Leia. Before she could advance further, however, she heard a familiar voice behind her and she stopped dead on her tracks.

“Rey!”, called Finn breathlessly as he run to catch up to her, alarm and concern etched in his face. “What are you—?”

“We can’t fight them back nor flee like this”, Rey interrupted him, looking at the sky and how the First Order was starting to position their ships all surrounding the area, crowding around them. “But they don’t know our exact numbers in the base right now, so maybe I can go first and be a distraction while you escape on the other ships.”

“What?! A distraction won’t work on them again!”, he retorted in a higher pitched tone than usual, his anxious gaze on the sky as well. “That’s crazy, you’ll get yourself ki—!”

“We have to try! Besides, Be—Kylo Ren might be desperate enough to send so many ships, but if he thinks I’m here he’ll be here”, she blurted out. “He won’t open fire on the Falcon if I’m in it, he wants _ me _ alive.”

_… Or not_, the insidious thought came to her, and Rey felt sick in the stomach.

“How?”, he said in an incredulous tone, confused. “At least let me go with you, if they capture you… !”

“No”, Rey replied instead, with the most calmed tone she could come up with. “Trust me, they aren’t going to open fire on me.” No way she was risking Finn’s life like that. She already didn’t want to bring Chewbacca with her, but she would need at least another person for the Falcon’s turret, and the wookie knew the ship like no one there.

Finn was about to say something but he seemingly couldn’t find the words, opening and closing his mouth like a gaping fish. There must have been many questions in his head, but she couldn’t answer them right then… Probably never.

“There’s no time, Finn, where’s Leia? I have to tell her.”

“She was on the cave dock when I left to find you. I can tell her for you.”

As soon as Rey heard that she sighed a relieved “_ thank you _”, giving a hurried hug to Finn that he returned with equal hurry and a bit more strength, and left her sprint to her destination.

“May the Force be with you, Finn!”, she shouted as she run towards the Falcon.

Barely paying attention to what her friend replied to her, Rey tried to focus on the situation at hand and boarded the ship.

  
  
_4\. _

  
  
The plan didn’t work as Rey intended, although in truth, it wasn’t as if she had ever believed it would. But it was the only thing they could do, their only gamble left. A desperate one.

Now, as what little ships they got left were brought into the hangar bay of one of the many Star Destroyers deployed close to Batuu, Rey couldn’t even think of anything they could do to turn the tide. The Falcon and the Resistance’s transport ship were secured by stormtroopers, as well as their little group of X-Wings, and there weren’t allies they could contact. The only ones that maybe could have helped them were a pair of groups they had sent out on missions, but that still wouldn’t make a difference. Rey prayed they wouldn’t come back to Batuu yet, at least not while the First Order was present. That way, maybe the Resistance would somehow survive like it had done up until now.

As she was brought outside of the Falcon alongside Chewbacca her eyes found their comrades, standing very still and being pointed at by the stormtroopers’ blasters. A surge of fear and anger hit her then, and it only spiked further when she found her friends and saw the fear engraved in their expressions. Not even Leia herself could fake in front of their enemies the defeat they all felt in their bones, her shoulders slumped and head bowed down.

The First Order had won.

Rey stopped walking, feeling her blood boil. It wasn’t fair. A stormtrooper was telling her something, tugging at her arm, but she couldn’t hear him. All that fighting to make things right, all the pain, all the losses and sacrifices… All for nothing. It wasn’t fair.

Consumed by the rage coursing through her veins, Rey channeled the Force…

… only for nothing to happen.

But she should have known—ever since she had closed off her end of the bond to Kylo, her attunement in the Force had seemingly waned to a point where she often couldn’t use it properly. So when she saw no stormtroopers pushed around, no shaking floor, no weapons flung away, Rey wasn’t surprised. And all that was left of her anger became a crushing feeling of powerlessness.

Suddenly a sharp pain erupted violently on Rey’s side, the sickening echo of a crunch immediately following. With her breath knocked out of her lungs Rey fell to her knees, feeling nauseous.

“Rey!”, overlapped Rose and Finn’s panicked screams, along with Chewbacca’s roar as he tried to free himself only to be quickly subdued by a group of soldiers.

“I said _ move_!”, yelled the stormtrooper, gripping tight the butt of the blaster he had used to hit Rey with.

Oh, if only Rey had her quarterstaff or Luke’s lightsaber, she thought, hissing through her teeth as she pierced the soldier with her gaze. If only.

Before Rey realized it, Leia was rushing to her with a pair of stormtroopers darting behind her.

“Oh, Rey!”, she muttered as she kneeled beside her, hurrying to check her side with worried eyes and a gentle touch. “Are you alright?”

“I-I’m fine”, Rey managed to articulate through the pain, intent on reassuring the older woman even though she was pretty sure there was something broken. “I’m fine.”

“Hey, you! Back off, now!”, barked a stormtrooper as he swiftly strode toward Leia, who froze in the spot as the soldier aimed his blaster at her head. “Can’t you hear, or what? _ Back off! _”, the hot-headed man repeated, ready to fire.

“Enough!”, rushed in another stormtrooper, gripping tight the aiming weapon and pointing it downwards. “Remember his orders!”

The angry man then yanked the blaster from his companion’s hand, but just as Rey prepared herself to do something, anything—he retreated. Rey left out a shaky breath, hearing Leia do the same. The woman’s eyes were still full of concern as she took a last look at Rey’s side. As stormtroopers abruptly hoisted them, Leia leant in towards Rey and whispered:

“Don’t forget: rebellions are built on hope.”

There was a little bittersweet smile on Leia’s face, even as the troopers led her to stand with their comrades, and Rey couldn’t help but frown. She couldn’t tell if Leia was simply encouraging her, or if there was something more behind her choice of words.

Before Rey could say something, however, the stormtroopers shoved her brusquely forward to a fleet transport and pain flared, muting her thoughts.

The next minutes became a blur, agony turning Rey’s brain sluggish and making her afraid of moving a bit too much in her seat. Metal-plated corridor after metal-plated corridor unfolded before her eyes as the astromech of the vehicle guided them. _To Kylo_, she thought through the haze clouding her mind. She wondered what he would think of her now (how he would feel about her now), how he would react, but the train of thoughts lasted what little it took her to remember that it was _Kylo_ who’d gotten them captured like this. She gritted her teeth.

If Rey would have been in a better state to think through it, she would have thoroughly compared the entrails of this Star Destroyer to the ones she had traversed back at Jakku. She had a feeling that, even after so many years, the internal design would still be pretty similar. Maybe she could have even been able to exploit secret passages and the likes to her own benefit. But as things were, if Rey wanted to do that she would need to get rid of the four stormtroopers around her, and drive all the way back—which still didn’t give her any guarantee that they would be able to get out of there. Another stab of pain up her side as she moved, however, served as a reminder, and Rey gave up. Instead she wondered about her upcoming meeting, held hope that she would be able to bargain with him—held hope that the Ben she knew hadn’t drowned in the darkness like she feared.

Hope, however, came in the form of a deafening roar to their right, followed by the world around them violently lurching and turning upside down at a speed that made her stomach roil. A howl tore from Rey’s throat as the transport rolled and slammed into a wall, the outbursts of pain setting her every nerve on fire. She thought she felt a tug at the bond, but her body was screaming at her, she was screaming, and her brain just didn’t have the ability to grasp at anything more.

Through the tears clouding her sight and the ringing in her ears Rey distinguished stormtroopers bolting around, distorted sounds of shouts and lasers not too far from there. She squinted, trying to get a view of what was going on.

Everything around Rey was pure chaos—but that could mean only one thing.

_Don’t forget: rebellions are built on hope_, had said Leia. Rey smiled to herself, allowing a shaky laugh.

Getting to her feet with a growl, she gazed at the part of the hallway where they had come from and felt relief when she saw there was enough space through the rubble to pass. Rey then took a look at the stormtroopers that had been with her on the vehicle—they wouldn’t be a problem anymore. She grimaced yet without hesitation, recalling memories of scavenging for the belongings of the dead in Jakku, inspected their blasters and took one.

She tried to move her shaking body to the hallway, taking deep breaths as she started limping her way back. It wasn’t a short route to the hangar, though, and she wouldn’t have much time left until someone came to get her, so Rey sped up her pace. Pain shoot up her spine as she did so, but the rush of adrenaline pumping in her veins helped her drive on.

Navigating among fallen debris, she found more bodies of stormtroopers scattered around. Luckily for Rey, the ones that were still alive were hurrying towards some other part of the Star Destroyer and didn’t take the time to search for survivors nor for her. The explosions and shouts sounded closer and closer, and she gripped tighter the blaster as she heard a myriad of rushing footsteps.

She hid behind a wall, her heart beating frantically.

Sure now that they had passed her by, Rey’s head poked from behind the wall—all clear. She bid her legs to go faster, the injury in her side protesting fiercely at the motions, but she just grit her teeth. Suddenly another deafening sound surrounded Rey and she was thrown to the floor, landing on what if wasn’t then a cracked rib it would certainly be now. She howled, spitting a swear as she forced up her exhausted body with a strength she didn’t know she could muster at this point. A spike of frustration, of anger, surged through her, and it almost overwhelmed the pain. Drawing on these emotions, letting them take over the fear and how her body yelled at her, Rey started walking again**_—_**faster, this time.

She _ was _ getting out of here, no matter what.

A stormtrooper was unfortunate enough to stand in Rey’s path—swiftly she drew her blaster, aiming at the helmet with a proficiency that surprised even herself, and kept going.

On, and on, and on, the corridors didn’t cease to appear before her, and Rey started to worry she might have gone the wrong way. She probably should have reached the hangar already, but there were only endless hallways extending to her left and right. Vast ones, now. Leaning on the cool metal plating behind her, she looked up at the ceiling and allowed herself a moment to regain her breath and try to think of something.

It was then that another impact shook the ship, but by now Rey was used to it and her grip on the doorway was strong enough to keep her from hitting anything. The close roar had masked other sounds that she failed to hear, but that now felt too loud in the newfound silence: more footsteps.

Rey readied her stance, quickly whirling to point her blaster, but as soon as she saw the figures, she lowered it with a sigh of relief.

“Rey!”, yelled Finn, and the concern in his face passed on to Poe and Chewbacca as they all came to a halt just before her. “Rey, are you okay?!”

“Yeah”, she said with a little nod, wincing when she felt Chewbacca examine her side. “Well, more or less”, she admitted.

“You don’t look too good”, mused Poe with a frown. “Let’s get out of here, quick!”

Rey certainly wasn’t going to argue that. Allowing for Chewbacca to carry her, they were on the run once more. She would have asked for explanations, but she was just so worn out she decided it could wait for later. However… 

“And the others?”, she asked Finn hesitantly, dreading the reply.

“We left them fighting at the hangar”, he said, and Rey noted the tinge of worry in his voice. “We couldn’t leave without you.”

Rey blinked twice at the words, feeling her eyes sting. Still, among the deep gratitude she felt, there was bitterness—they could have escaped already, if it wasn’t for her. She was their friend, yes, but the Resistance was more important… _ Specially when you can’t even be a proper Jedi for them_, whispered a voice inside of her. Rey bit back her tongue from reflecting about these things, instead settling for a quiet, honest “thank you”.

The sound of Poe chuckling pulled Rey from her thoughts, and she realized her friends were still conversating.

“Rose will be fine, I’m sure she can handle herself. She’s strong”, declared Poe, looking over his shoulder at Finn as a smile appeared on the latter’s face.

“True, though”, sighed Rey, the smile contagious.

Her smile wouldn’t last long, however.

It took them a pair more of skirmishes with some stormtroopers, and some more running and shooting, before they were able to reach the hangar. Once they were there it was all an open battle where the Resistance tried to free their ships to get out, fighting stormtroopers in a mishmash of close-range combat and plasma bolts.

And there, in the center of it all, the Millennium Falcon calling them forth like a beacon as Rose and other rebels kept the First Order soldiers at bay. Hastening their pace, they reached for cover to avoid being shoot in the crossfires and firing back as they closed the distance. They rushed to duck behind an abandoned transport, however, when the Falcon’s Ground Buzzar blaster cannon fired not too far from where they stood.

“I’m going for my X-Wing, can you cover me before you enter the Falcon?”, asked Poe, his eyes already assessing the battlefield.

“You sure? That might be too risky”, grimaced Rey.

“Not as much as setting up yourself as bait.”

Rey knew by Poe’s tone that he hadn’t intended the phrase as a retort, yet still it fanned the frustration bubbling up inside of her. She had to bit her cheek before she accidentally revealed the nature of her weird relationship with Ben—_ Kylo_, she corrected herself in annoyment again. Force, why was it so difficult to get rid of that habit?

“Okay, okay, it’s settled then”, intervened quickly Finn, nodding then at the X-Wing’s direction. “You’re going to need a gunner, though.”

Poe grinned at him, and that was the only confirmation they needed. With a roar Chewbacca urged them forward as he fired his bowcaster at a pair of nearby stormtroopers, and Rey joined the fray with the blaster.

They covered their friends’ backs until reach the little vessel and were able to lift off, and then they followed up with their part of the plan. As they moved Rey realized with a pang of panic that Leia was nowhere to be seen, but Chewbacca pointed at the Falcon and she recognized her form in the cockpit. Relief washed over Rey and they hurried to reach the safety of their ship, followed by Rose and a bunch of other rebels.

“Thank the Force”, sighed Leia, rising from the pilot’s seat as they entered the cockpit to give her a quick hug—Rey winced. The commander opened her mouth then, but the impact of plasma bolts on the Falcon drove them to action. “The pilot seat’s yours as always”, said Leia, giving Rey a little squeeze on the shoulder before seating behind her.

Rey was happy to find that the woman had already prepared the Falcon, and the ramp was closed after some more companions were in. Most of their allies had successfully freed their ships and were now out of the Star Destroyer. Good. Putting on the headset comlink, Rey contacted with whoever was now in control of the laser turret as the Falcon started to lift.

“We’re getting out of here as many of us as we can!”, ordered Rey. “Fire at will at the troopers!”

“Understood!”, came Connix’s voice from the other side and, seconds later, the Falcon was wreaking havoc among the increasing enemy ranks to protect those who were still reclaiming their vessels.

From the corner of her eye Rey caught Leia smiling at her, but as the woman opened her mouth to speak, her eyes went wide with shock as they looked past Rey. She instantly followed her gaze in panic, and she found the reason—_him_.

“Ben!”, whispered Leia, her anguished voice followed by Chewbacca’s roars.

From the far end of the hangar, with his mask on one hand and his ignited lightsaber in the other, Kylo was darting through the mayhem towards them, slashing enemies and deflecting plasma bolts. Rey’s blood went cold when a burst of blasts from the Falcon hit the floor mere metres just in front of him, raising a curtain of smoke.

“_STOP FIRING! _”, yelled desperately Rey through the comlink, momentarily halting the takeoff.

Seconds dragged on endlessly as Rey watched from her seat, heart beating frantically as smoke that should be bathed in crackling red started to clear.

The palpable tension in the cockpit vanished when Kylo’s form emerged, unscathed, rising to his feet to fight back a pair of rebels in hand-to-hand combat as his turned off lightsaber lay forgotten on the floor far from him. That, along with the arrival of a large group of stormtroopers, was their cue to go—as much as it pained Rey (as it pained all of them) to leave allies behind, there was just no time anymore. They had to go _ now_, before things got worse.

As Rey started to maneuver the Falcon to point it towards the open gate, however, the ship halted… and slowly started to return back to its position.

“No, no, no, it can’t be!”, cursed Rey, eyes wide in disbelief as she frantically tried to regain control.

As the Falcon turned around she lifted her gaze to the cockpit’s window, and it found Ben’s—they locked for the first time after a year. Time seemed to come to a halt momentarily, as did her breath at the sight.

Ben looked more haggard than she had ever seen him, the bags under his eyes noticeable even under the blue lights of the Falcon, and it surprised her to find his expression undecipherable. His scowl betrayed nothing but resolve and concentration as he fought to keep his stance, an arm extended toward the ship as he fought to keep it from escaping. The other hand, Rey realized, held his helmet, now mysteriously cracked with red lines—but questioning herself would have to wait for later.

Once more Rey felt the anger from before spike and, once more, she allowed for it take over her, to envelop her in its scalding embrace as she kept eye contact with Kylo. This time the Force responded to her desperate call, to serve her raw desire of freeing herself and her comrades… 

… and as Rey yelled, freeing the Falcon from Kylo’s invisible grasp, the blockade she had built around her side of the bond this last year unexpectedly yielded and blew up.

A torrent of roiling emotions coming from him hit her full force, mercilessly pushing and pulling against her like the mighty waves of an ocean, threatening to drown her—a chaos not unlike what she had felt inside of him back then as they boarded the elevator to Snoke, except this time the suddenness and intensity of it made the emotions an unreadable mess to Rey. For a moment, she was breathless.

And judging by the way Ben staggered and shook, his eyes now on his feet as he strained to breathe just like she was doing, Rey knew the same had happened to him.

Chewbacca’s roar brought Rey back to reality and, realizing this might be their only chance left to get out of there, she quickly took control of the Falcon and guided it towards the hangar gate with shaking hands.

As soon as they broke free they were received by a sky full of little ships dancing frantically around each other to shoot and dodge, flying among Star Destroyers and a surprisingly amount of ships that, although unfamiliar, Rey could only recognize as allies. And then without a moment of hesitation, as they found a clear path, they jumped to hyperspace and encouraged the other ships to do so—that was no battle they could win.

It took Rey some minutes to finally let go of the death grip she had on the controls, which was about the time it took for the waves of emotions coming from Ben to recede to a point where they didn’t crush her chest.

For longer minutes no one said anything in the cockpit, the only sounds those of the other Resistance members aboard talking and the rumbling of the Falcon as it traveled at lightspeed, but that silence wasn’t present in Rey’s mind.

For the first time in a year her side of their bond was wide open, and with the accidental exchange of feelings still fresh yet not overwhelming anymore, with the echoes of him still lingering, Ben’s emotions were clear enough to tell them apart.

They weren’t exactly what Rey had expected to find.

With the deep-rooted frustration she could deal, even with the disturbing lack of rage, but with the rest of his spectrum of emotions, too raw and too alike the loneliness and longing she had specially suffered through this last year, too alike the pain and sorrow and despair that had haunted her at times—with these, however, she could not.

Shaken by the discovery and in dire need of treatment and sleep, she gave up the control of the Falcon to Chewbacca and started heading to the medbay with Leia by her side.

  
  
_5\. _

  
  
Hollow eyes met equally hollow eyes as Kylo Ren raised his gaze from the floor to this grandfather’s mask.

He had failed. _ Again_.

This time, however, there was no rage to which he could turn to in hopes that it would overshadow the raw emotions coursing through him. The void that had been festering inside his chest for so long had made Kylo little more than a shadow of the shadow he had been, rendering him all too vulnerable. _ Weak_. The feelings he couldn’t tame were dangerous, and much more it was that they had painted a target on his back—but he couldn’t find it in himself to care enough about it anymore, about reinforcing the locking of his door at night, about sleeping half the time a human would need, about going to bed with his own lightsaber close to him.

The Resistance had escaped their clutches yet another day, and Rey was still out there flying that piece of junk, running away with her friends—her family. A searing outburst of frustration and despair made him pound his bare knuckles again the floor. And again. And again, and again, and again, until skin cracked open and beads of red adorned the dark metal below him and tears run down his cheeks. He fought the urge to scream, unmasked as he was, lest the lack of the mask’s distortion betrayed his voice and anyone would hear the weakness seeping into it.

He fervently wished he could get rid of these emotions. If only he could break free of this pull to the light that somehow only got stronger, if only he could go a day without feeling as if he was being devoured by guilt and loneliness, fear and hopelessness. Without feeling as if he wanted, but couldn’t, claw his way out of his own skin. The darkness—he needed it. The howling rage it brought, the scalding hate—overwhelming, blinding, until all he could see and breathe was darkness, the darkness that would fill the hole his weakness had bored on him. He _ belonged _ in the darkness. He _ had _ to. He had been reborn as Kylo Ren in the Dark Side, reforged in the fire and blood of battle. _ “Monster”_, Rey had called him. Like many others before and after her. Oh yes, he was a monster. He had accepted it long ago and strode forward—so, where did the hesitation come from? The more he fought to drench himself in the dark, the more the light reclaimed him. What else could he do?

For the longest time Kylo didn’t talk, like he usually would do, his throat constricted as he kept his kneeling position in front of the shrine where Darth Vader’s mask rested. Words wouldn’t come out of his trembling lips, and his brain was a jumbled mess.

It was then that visions replayed in his mind as he looked at the helmet. Visions of a darkness not of his own, claiming what they should never claim—who they should never (shall never) claim. Kylo saw a sick reflection of he himself, dressed in clothes that mimicked his. A mocking promise, should he fail.

“Thank you”, he rasped to the helmet.

He had asked to be shown once more the powers of the dark many times before without success, and now he finally got his answer.

Kylo welcomed these visions just as much as they made his stomach lurch. But they spurred him, helped him stay on his path. _ “Darkness rises, and light to meet it”_. That was the unavoidable truth they were chained to—and he would make sure to play his part.

That night, Kylo did not sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, sooo...
> 
> After some good time working on this fic, of putting together all the stuff I wanted to write, and planning it all thoroughly, I can finally share the 1st part of my long Reylo-centric TROS fic!
> 
> I'm absolutely nervous because this is the first time I write an on-going, big fic, and I'm attempting to write it before TROS and the comic "The Rise of Kylo Ren" are out, but I'm suuuper excited too and loving the process of writing it. I hope you guys enjoy it!
> 
> Thanks for reading guys, have a nice day! <3


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